Olympics: on the podium, the American Raven Saunders sends a message to the oppressed

American Raven Saunders, Olympic vice-champion in the shot put on Sunday, celebrated her silver medal on the Olympic Games podium by forming an X with her arms, a message for oppressed people according to the American press.

Saunders, 25, is the first sportswoman since the Tokyo Games kicked off to use the medal ceremony as a political platform.

According to the American press, Saunders, a black athlete very invested in defending the rights of the LGBT community, explained that she represented "all the people around the world who are fighting and who do not have a platform to make their voice heard. voice".

"Finding value in who you are"

"My message is to continue to fight, to push and to find value in who you are, in everything you do," she said at a press conference after the weight competition.

"It's important for me to bring back this silver medal, because I represent so many different people, I know there are a lot of people looking at me, texting me and praying for me" , she had explained.

"I'm happy to bring this medal home for them too, not just for me," Saunders said.

Saunders is theoretically punishable

Before the start of the Tokyo Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that athletes could now express themselves on political or societal issues when addressing the media, before and after their competition, during team meetings or on social networks. But podiums and medal ceremonies were not included in the new IOC arrangements, which suggests that Saunders is theoretically sanctionable by the Olympic body. The IOC refused on Monday to say whether it would sanction Saunders. 

"We are in contact with the American Olympic and Paralympic Committee and with World Athletics (the International Athletics Federation, editor's note), we are going to study this file, we need to understand precisely what happened", a simply explained the instance during its daily press briefing in Tokyo.